


Small Comforts

by Lilbug121



Category: Metalocalypse
Genre: Gen, s04 special: The Doomstar Requiem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-05
Updated: 2015-01-05
Packaged: 2018-03-05 15:10:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3124781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilbug121/pseuds/Lilbug121
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They take and give what few comforts they can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Small Comforts

When Toki noticed Abigail shivering he doesn’t even think about it before he gives her his shirt. He would have done it even if he didn't know her. She doesn’t want to accept it, but he convinces her. Norway was cold, he tells her, he’s used to the cold. This is mostly true, but he hasn’t needed to be used to the cold in a long time now, and the biting cold of a snowy Norwegian winter was different than the seeping cold of a concrete basement. He doesn’t let her know this though. It’s his fault she’s in this mess, he thinks. It’s the least he can do for her. She makes him take it back when his infection makes him ill, says he can’t afford to get any sicker. But he made her keep it as long as he could convince her to. 

Several times Magnus hit Toki about the head so hard he saw double, was clearly concussed, and Abigail knew she needed to keep him awake. Sometimes he would have nightmares, even from day one, and when he woke too frightened to sleep or be alone he needed a distraction. When these happened she asked him to try and teach her Norwegian. She’s not sure if he got all of the translations correct but it kept him awake long enough for her to feel a little safer letting him sleep, and it kept his mind off of whatever he was dreaming. She almost regrets it though, when she begins to understand what he’s mumbling and crying in his nightmares. She only knows a scant amount, but she knows “no” “please” “father” and “I’m sorry”, which is more than enough. She takes his head in her lap and strokes his hair, and tries to will away both of their tears. 

There isn’t much of anything to do except wait to be tortured. So they talk. Abigail tells him stories about growing up, about her family, about school, other bands that she’s worked for. She never seems to run out, and even if she did Toki knows he wouldn’t mind hearing any of them again. Toki doesn’t have much to tell her. So much of his life has been steeped in blood and pain and death, he hardly knows anything good that’s happened outside of his time with Dethklok; and even half of those stories have bad endings. But imagination was always his strong suit, and he makes up stories for her instead. They’re a little childish and may feature dinosaurs and kittens too prominently, but Abigail doesn’t seem to mind. 

He likes it when Abigail sings to him. He wants to do the same for her, to give her some of the comfort she’s given him, but he was never sang to as a child and mostly listened to different kinds of rock music as an adult, so he knows no lullabies or anything else comforting, and he knows he can’t write songs. He promises instead that he’ll play guitar for her any time she wants when all of this is over. It’s a very pointed when, never if. If would mean lost hope, and even if he has to force the “when” out of his mouth he refuses to say anything else.

Everything aches, and what does not ache is instead a sharp burning pain. It’s difficult to tell how much time is passing anymore. It’s difficult to care, or do anything but stare at the filthy ceiling. Sometimes he tries to mumble something, but his mind is too muddled to come up with English, or even put his more familiar tongue in the proper order. This is what dying feels like. It’s not a question. He came close to dying many times growing up, of hunger or cold or blood loss, and he knows what it feels like. He’s a lost cause, and he wonders why Abigail can’t see that. She still holds his hair away from his face and rubs his back when he vomits up nothing, and tries to make him eat and drink. She stabs him with insulin and he wants to ask her why she’s bothering. Magnus made him do horrible things to get it, and Toki knows he must be making her do even worse. She speaks to him during fever dreams in the sparse broken Norwegian she managed to learn, and he wants to make the effort to mutter in English for her sake but when he tries he forgets what he was saying three words in. Through all of this he’s confident the rest of the band is looking for him. He’s not confident that he’ll be alive to greet them though. It’s a little sad, he thinks, but Abigail is relatively healthy given the circumstances and Toki think’s she’ll probably make it. So that’s good. He comforts himself with that, willing himself to be confident that at least she will be rescued. He smiles at that thought and descends into a muddled fever dream. 

Toki wakes up, truly lucid for the first time in weeks, in a stark white hospital bed with IV tubes in his arms and a familiar devilish teddy bear on his pillow. Shifting his confused gaze away from Deddy Bear, he sees Abigail asleep peacefully in her own bed. Beneath the din of hospital machines there's the barely-there but unmistakable sound of an electric guitar that's been unplugged, and Toki can hear the anxiety in the rapid plucking. He wants to cry, because his fever dreams are never this nice to him. The plucking stops short when he tries to push himself up, moving more sluggishly than expected. He is hugged more in the next hour or so than he has been in his entire life, and scarcely believes it to be more than a dream for almost two days. He and Abigail don't sleep apart for the next few months, always at least able to see the other. He plays guitar for her like he promised, and she sings wonderful happy songs. She braids his hair when he rests his head in her lap; he would do the same, but her hair is too curly to braid easily, so he just plays with it. He teaches her Norwegian properly, because Abigail is a woman who finishes what she starts. She plays board games with him, and he watches trashy reality shows with her and swears not to tell anyone she likes them. Small comforts are easier to come by, and they share them to spite their nightmares and scars. 


End file.
